The Bath Eccentric's Son by Amanda Scott

Author:Amanda Scott [Scott, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780451171702
Google: c1esPQAACAAJ
Goodreads: 1867346
Publisher: Signet
Published: 1991-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

IX

NELL CAUGHT HER LOWER LIP between her teeth, reluctant to speak, but both gentlemen remained silent, waiting, the one with well-bred patience, the other not patiently at all. “I don’t know where to begin,” she said at last.

“At the beginning,” Manningford recommended.

Had he shown sympathy, she might not have been able to oblige him, for it was difficult to think back to the beginning without falling prey to her emotions. Since he did not make that error, however, she was able to say almost matter-of-factly, “That would be the wager, I expect.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, “you mentioned your father’s penchant for odd wagers with his uncle. ’Tis from that you got the notion for the straw against the pot of gold, I suppose, but it will not serve. Their stakes cannot have been so uneven as that.”

“Well, they were certainly as ridiculous, sir, for my father staked the Highgate hatchment against his uncle’s brewery. You will recall that I told you about that brewery. At the time their disastrous wager was entered in the betting book, it was once again on Crosshill land and had been there for some years.”

“Wait a bit,” protested Mr. Lasenby. “Did you say he staked a hatchment against that brewery? A hatchment? The bits of black ribbon on a coat of arms that one puts above one’s door when a member of the family cocks up his toes?”

“Just so, Mr. Lasenby. Papa’s wager, made some time before her death, was that the Queen would outlive the King. When his majesty became so ill last summer, Papa was in alt because he believed the income from the brewery would eliminate his most pressing debts.”

“I can understand that,” Mr. Lasenby said feelingly.

Nell smiled. “Then you will also understand his distress when the King survived. In any case, the wager was nearly forgotten—by Papa, at least—when Reginald was killed in a hunting accident in mid-November. Papa was deeply affected by his death, so you can imagine his shock when Jarvis arrived at Highgate the afternoon following the announcement of the Queen’s demise, a fortnight later, to declare that he had come to collect on the wager. What was even more shocking was his insistence that, according to Reginald, Papa had staked Highgate itself against the brewery, not merely the stupid hatchment.”

“But surely the estate is entailed,” Manningford protested.

“No, for Papa was heavily in debt when Nigel came of age, so the entail was broken then by mutual agreement in order that Papa might sell off a few acres. He intended to resettle, of course, as soon as he was able, only through one cause or another, he had not yet done so. But he would never have staked it in a wager! In fact, he knew he had done no such thing, and he said Reginald must have been joking, for he was a great jokesmith.”

“Easy enough to prove,” Manningford said. “You mentioned a betting book. One had only to journey to London to look at it.”

“Oh, not even so far as that,” Nell told him.

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